Hello all, Ric here and todays video is a brief breakdown of the Borg Cooperative, not
the collective as depicted in Star Trek apocryphal lore, primarily on Star Trek Online.
The first time we see the cooperative is in 2373 in the Star Trek Voyager episode “Unity”.
Chakotay finds himself stranded on a planet in the Nekrit Expanse.
This expanse was a mixture of nebulae and interstellar gases that inhibited navigation
and proved a natural barrier between powers of the Delta Quadrant.
The planet was inhabited by a small number of former drones who had regained their sense
of self, and restored much of their originality.
Their origin was in 2368 when a Borg Cube fell victim to an electrokinetic storm and
many of the drones were severed from the Collective.
Many of these aliens travelled to a nearby planet of few resources to set up a colony
but it was not long before the old rivalries of numerous species resurfaced and skirmishes
were common.
One faction named themselves the Cooperative and attempted to found an organisation based
on just that, sharing and nurturing a cooperative environment.
Using technology from their damaged cube, they were able to re-establish a collective
link of sorts and force a peace onto the remaining colony.
This is where they decided to remain, to build their peaceful approach and they destroyed
the derelict Borg cube too.
Moving forwards into the non-canonical works now, in the timeline of STO, the Cooperative
did eventually migrate off world and set about looking to liberate more drones from the Collective.
They did not have the resources to begin with to directly challenge the Borg, but nonetheless
their numbers grew as they found more disconnected drones and restored their individuality.
Such instances of disconnected drones were not altogether uncommon, with numerous elemental
factors occasionally breaking a Borg Cube’s connection to the hive mind and instances
such as the re-assimilation of Hugh into the Collective further spreading his individuality
amid the cube, rather than quashing it.
In 2378, the Borg suffered a major blow when they assimilated an alternate future version
of Admiral Janeway complete with a virus that broke down the Queen’s link to her drones.
It was a severe hit and it took the Borg Collective a long while to recover and they were a diminished
threat for a time.
During this vulnerable period, the Cooperative grew in size and not only liberated individual
drones but managed to seize entire cubes and ships from their former oppressors.
Their former status amid the collective allowed many of them to retain the knowledge to operate
these vessels and by 2409, they were able to occasionally engage other Borg in the hopes
of breaking their hive mind further.
Once freed from the collective, not every Ex-Borg wished to remain involved with the
Borg in any fashion, understandably.
The connection to the cooperative was therefore optional and any liberated Borg was free to
leave to follow their own path, whether or not it kept them with the Cooperative.
Some of the XBs chose to retain their individuality but still work with the Collective, and some
chose to link their minds to the new peaceful hive mind.
Even in these instances, it seems that the Cooperative’s shared link differs from the
Collectives in that it still allows for the expression of individualism instead of overwhelming
it.
However it does share experience, feeling and memories among those connected, creating
a sense of unity.
It can also be used in the same fashion as the Borg’s own Collective hive mind, to
force its will onto a single connected individual, which is worrying.
Such an action is in opposition to all they stand for, but as the Voyager episode shows,
it is a line they have already crossed.
As a separate faction however, they have not actively engaged in hostilities with any opponent,
save the Borg Collective except in self-defence.
Unfortunately, this happens rather frequently as the Cooperative still operate the advanced
Borg ships and many still retain their implants, (which are too integrated to remove).
This leads others to attack them on sight, as they have an understandable fear and wariness
when it comes to the Borg, and many who have suffered at the hands of the Collective do
not differentiate, or are just plain unaware of the distinction between the two factions.
The Cooperative for its part has remained understanding of this issue, but it has hampered
their attempts in the past to provide aid on their mission to liberate as many Borg
as they can.
Generally, if there is an active assimilation in process from the Collective and there is
a nearby Cooperative presence, then they will respond in an attempt to save who they can,
but their resources are relatively small, with only a handful of operational cubes and
tactical Borg ships at their disposal.
Although they retained a technological edge, granted by their use of former Borg technology
they were generally not considered a threat by others.
Originally, in Star Trek Online, the Cooperative’s leader was in fact Hugh, who after the incident
with Lore, eventually found his way to the Delta Quadrant planet and encouraged their
mission in the first place.
This has since been retconned out of the story, with the airing of Star Trek Picard and the
differing path that had Hugh walk, working on the liberated cube termed the “Artefact”
in Romulan Free State space, and his subsequent death.
In a potential future, we also hear that the Borg Cooperative may have supplanted the Collective
as a dominant power, but in other alternate realities, they were eventually consumed by
the Collective once more, or transcended into a completely separate gestalt entity…
The First Splinter timeline books get weird.
Thanks for watching this video, and where the cooperative goes in the shows remains
to be seen but perhaps we will get some development on that soon.
Until then, I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you again later, goodbye!